Judith with the Head of Vincent van Gogh

"You were only meant to cut off van Gogh's earlobe".
On a rocky headland overlooking the Principality of Monaco, Rembrandt is remonstrating with Judith who holds a platter containing the decapitated head of Vincent van Gogh. In the middle distance van Gogh is lying sprawled out amidst the scattered remains of his palette and unfinished landscape painting. Behind the artist is the eighteenth century Fort Antoine and beyond, the Cap Esterel mountain range. To the left you see Monaco's Musée Oceanographique.
The painting by Matthew Moss owes its inspiration to Judith with the head of Holofernes an Old Testament subject very popular with Baroque artists. A painting of about 1620 in the Uffizi, Florence by Artemisia Gentileschi shows in gory detail Judith decapitating the invading Assyrian general, Holofernes.
Rembrandt is not known to have depicted the subject although some scholars suggest that his Flora* began life as a Judith with the head of Holofernes. He was influenced by a Peter Paul Rubens painting of the same subject done in 1616. Another interesting version of Judith with the head of Holofernes, attributed to Carl Fabritius, Rembrandt's pupil, is in the Old Masters section of ArtMonteCarlo.com http://artmontecarlo.com/image_details.php?painting_id=589
*London, National Gallery

are available for book illustrations, annual reports, paper and packaging, giftware, related products. You can license them in the following format: Original transparencies in 6 x 6 cm. (2¼ in.) format, high-resolution RGB drum scans on DVD or efficient and quick E-Mail or FTP upload.